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Meet the turkey
If you’re in United States, next Thursday is Thanksgiving! And we all know what that means – many of us will enjoy a turkey dinner. Beyond the domesticated turkey on my dinner table, I’ve become more aware of their wild cousins lately. Quite a few turkeys are running around the towns surrounding Boston! In fact, […]
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Meet the fisher
This week’s animal is an identification request from my partner. He was biking around Massachusetts when he saw a sign that said, “Warning: fisher cats.” Which begged the question: what is a fisher cat?? He asked me if I knew what they were when I got home; I said I did, but I honestly only […]
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Meet the alpaca
I had an exciting weekend – I went with some friends to visit an ALPACA FARM!!!! Do you know how cute alpacas are? (Spoiler: they’re pretty cute). And alpacas are sooooo soft. They almost didn’t feel real. Beyond letting us meet alpacas, the farm gave us some interesting facts about these animals that I want […]
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Black Cat Halloween Special!
Today (as I’m writing) is a very special day: October 27th is National Black Cat Day! My cat Ori is a black cat, so he would like some treats and attention from all of you 😉 AND it’s almost Halloween, so there’s no better time to appreciate black cats, a not-so-spooky Halloween symbol. There is […]
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Meet the bumblebee
I found a fantastic scientific paper this week that made me so happy. It was about how bumblebees PLAY. Isn’t that just so cute??? I’ll tell you more about this paper and its finding in a second – first, I want to introduce you to the humble bumblebee. Bumblebees (also spelled bumble bee, bumble-bee, and […]
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Meet the European starling
When my partner got home from a Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) concert last week, he asked me if I knew what a murmuration was. I said of course! It’s when a bunch of European starlings fly together. But how did starling murmurations come up in an orchestra concert? Well apparently, the BSO co-commissioned a piece […]
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Meet the vampire bat
I watched the movie Morbius over the weekend. It was… a movie. And not a very good one. Some of the movie’s choices I can look past. Most fantasy / action movies require some suspension of disbelief. Do I wish they had given more context about the character backstories? Sure. Can I look past the […]
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Meet the Eurasian red squirrel
It’s officially fall! Which means, of course, that winter is right around the corner. This has gotten me thinking about what animals need to do in order to survive the winter. Some, like many birds, migrate to warmer climates; but those animals who don’t migrate must figure out how to deal with the snow and […]
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Meet the naked mole-rat
It’s a weird one this week, folks. I was preparing for a lab presentation when I stumbled across a paper looking at pain insensitivity in mole-rats. I was absolutely taken with this paper – who knew that naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) didn’t feel pain from peppers or citrus? (more on this later). Why are they […]
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Meet the Icelandic sheep
I’ve been away the past few weeks on vacation in Iceland. Let me tell you, Iceland is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend people go and visit! While I was in Iceland, I saw a LOT of sheep. I didn’t realize before going just how many sheep are in Iceland. There are in fact more sheep […]